“For me, the luminosity of sound has always been a goal,” Manfred Eicher tells the camera in an early sequence of Sounds and Silence: Travels With Manfred Eicher [ECM]. “A beautifully ringing tone, for instance, is like the streak of...

Rare is the hardcore jazz musician under 40 who hasn’t soaked up the contents of the seven CDs that comprise Miles Davis: The Complete Live at the Plugged Nickel: 1965.Released in 1995, and long out of print, that box set...

The publicity credits for Def Jam Recordings: The First 25 Years of the Last Great Record Label [Rizzoli Press], which hits the market in early October, cite co-authors Bill Adler and Dan Charnas, essayist Kelefa Sanneh, and label founders Rick...

Today is the fifth anniversary of the fateful day when Hurricane Katrina disastrously made landfall in southeast Louisiana, settting in motion a chain of events still reverberating to this day. Do you really think we'd have seen the preventive measures...

Frank Benjamin Foster, III, the saxophonist-composer-arranger who made his mark performing in the Count Basie Orchestra and subsequently became its musical director, died today. He was 83 years old. After suffering a stroke in 2001 that incapacitated his left side...

On July 19th, Concord Records released The Mosaic Project, the fifth leader date by Grammy-nominated drummer, composer and producer Terri Lyne Carrington. It’s the fourth session on which Carrington coalesces -- as she states on a promotional video on her...

At a ceremony at its headquarters in Paris last Friday, UNESCO appointed jazz pianist and 14-time Grammy-winner Herbie Hancock a Goodwill Ambassador. Hancock responded to Director-General Irina Bokova’s request that he "contribute to UNESCO’s efforts to promote mutual understanding among...

A street busker in Paris at 15, lead singer with a Paris-based touring jazz and blues troupe by 16, Madeleine Peyroux--out of New Orleans and Brooklyn--grew up fast. Indeed, since her 1996 debut, Dreamland, observers have noted a world-weary quality...